Mick McCarthy’s message to Blackpool fans ahead of Lancashire derby against Blackburn Rovers

The Seasiders take on Blackburn Rovers tonight looking to claim a second win on the bounce after ending their 14-game winless run against Stoke City at the weekend.

But with Blackpool still in the bottom three, McCarthy knows how important the fans will be between now and the end of the season as the Seasiders look to battle and scrap their way to survival.

“If ever the fans needed any convincing they ought to come down to Blackburn and watch the team, then a win on Saturday helps,” McCarthy said.

“There might be a few thinking ‘oh I might go to that one now’ as opposed to not being too bothered about it.

“I hope they do, I hope we get a good following because it will help them.”

While McCarthy knew how raucous Blackpool’s fans were before his appointment in January, he’s still been majorly impressed with their support.

This was particularly evident on Saturday, when the home faithful stuck with their players all the way while they came under the cosh against a Stoke side that dominated possession.

That certainly didn’t go unnoticed with McCarthy, who added: “I’ve been in games like this before where the other team has lots of the ball and all of a sudden there’s groans and moans. When they come, it only makes it worse and it makes it inevitable you’re going to concede almost.

“But we didn’t get that, it was just pure support all the way through and seldom do you see that.

“It’s very easy for the crowd to turn but they didn’t, they just kept supporting us. That’s part of the reason why we came away with a clean sheet.

“The worst thing is you lose the ball and you hear groans because it gets to players, it gets to people and there was never any of that, it was just great support.

“I was delighted for them, they deserved that result on Saturday, the fans.”

Blackpool are now two points adrift of safety, meaning they can climb out of the bottom three for the first time since November with another win.

Even if that proves to be the case, McCarthy is still expecting Blackpool’s relegation dogfight to go right down to the wire.

“I didn’t need any convincing it was going to be a scrap, I knew that when I took the job,” he said.

“I did say generally teams in the bottom three, and I’ve looked at it for years and years, they will probably get a point a game. If you do that all the way until the end, if you’ve got 16 games you end up with 16 points, that’s generally the amount of points you get.

“We’ve had five from five, which is kind of working with what I said. But we’ve got to up that, we’ve got to get more than that.

“Even the performance in the second-half against Swansea which we took into Saturday, we showed some guts and determination as well as some good football. We had better chances than we did on Saturday.

“It’s going to be a scrap until the very end.”